Wednesday 5 March 2008

Galician SS. Where are they now?

In May 1945, the Ukrainian Galician SS Division surrendered to the British in Klagenfurt, Austria, whereby they were sent to a prison Camp in Rimini Italy to await their fate. Two years later eight thousand of them, an entire division, many known to be guilty of war crimes, were shipped to Britain employing the infamous ‘Ratline’ set up by the CIA and former head of German intelligence, Reinhardt Gehlen. The Vatican with the full support of the Pope, Pius 12, was used to facilitate the illegal operation. The former Nazi’s on arriving in Britain were initially interned in various prison camps but were eventually released en mass given civilian status and found dwellings and employment all over the kingdom. They may not have been German SS but they were hardened SS soldiers none the less and had fought against the allies with the same vigour as their German counterparts. It was true that they didn’t particularly like the Germans but they hated the Russians with a vengeance and were gainfully employed on the Russian front where they fought with distinction until they were redeployed to the West. The details regarding this strange act of altruism- on the part of the British government-toward a former SS division still remain classified to this day. Forty years after they were released into the community - in November 1998 - a British All-Party Parliamentary Committee determined that the Galician SS had not received even the minimal screening required for normal immigration to Britain, let alone the rigorous scrutiny promised in 1947. They were all supposed to have worked as labourers in the rebuilding of Britain but is strongly suspected that many of them were recruited into the British secret service to help fight the perceived threat of a Russian invasion, indeed it is known that some of them were parachuted back into the much expanded Soviet Union, to fight the cause from behind enemy lines . The fact that the leader of the Ukrainian nationalists, Stepan Bandera, had worked for British Intelligence (SIS) before the war, may have played its part in the somewhat secretive action given that Bandera was among those taken straight back into the SIS fold. It is reasonable to speculate that he was not alone.
Why were they allowed to go to Britain 8000 strong, what was the deal, what was it they really went on to do and why is it still a secret?
Given their hatred for the Russians it was very probable that they were absorbed into the ‘Stay behind’ program and after training redeployed to various parts of the UK and Europe as part of the Gladio network set up by MI6 and the OSS to counter the perceived Russian invasion of Europe. The fact that a Russian invasion of Europe, following the war, was highly unlikely given that they were as exhausted as the rest of the world after 6 long years of bloody war leads one to believe that something else was going on. It has since been established that the allies new all along that there was no real threat so what was Gladio and the Galician SS regiment for.
No satisfactory answers to these questions have yet been given.